


It's a Wild, Wild Universe Out There

by aph_pasta



Category: Cowboy Bebop (Anime), Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, F/F, Gen, scifi, slowish burn, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aph_pasta/pseuds/aph_pasta
Summary: Iszabella is no stranger to running. Running from the law, running from her enemies, running from herself. And when there's no land beneath her feet to run on, she gets in a starship and starts flying.SciFi bounty hunters AU, based on Cowboy Bebop
Relationships: Female Poland/Female Prussia (hetalia)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Hetalia Scifi





	It's a Wild, Wild Universe Out There

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! To my loyal readers and fans who have stuck with me since my first story, thank you so much for continuing to read and enjoy my work. To my new fans, welcome, and I hope you enjoy! I'm back from my hiatus with some new content, and hope to put out some more interesting writing for you all. I'm also hoping to continue my other fanfics, though I honestly don't know if I will. Thanks for reading!

“If you sit and listen a while, I’ll tell you a story.”

The woman lit a cigarette and placed it in a long holder, which she slowly raised to her lips with shaky, gnarled hands. She blew a long stream of smoke from her heavily rouged lips, then grinned.

“It was ‘68. Spring… maybe summer, if I recall correctly.”

The bartender passed by and set a shot glass full of clear liquid in front of the woman. She downed it as though it were water and continued to speak.

“I was chasing the Braginskaya girl, the younger one. She was a tricky little thing,” the woman shook her head and laughed. “Anyway, we’d been going for four thousand, maybe five thousand miles, and I was finally gaining on her…”

\----

Iszabella screamed wildly as she pushed the yoke forward, begging her ship to speed up. Racing faster than the speed of sound, she felt as though she was barely inching forward. Her target blasted fire from the exhaust pipe and a laugh crackled over the ship’s radio. The target suddenly turned into a nosedive and Iszabella quickly followed. The target turned sharply left and Iszabella did too. They spun wildly through space, a lightning-fast cat and dog caught in an endless race. 

“I’ve got you!” Iszabella yelled, and whooped triumphantly as she started to slide above the ship, ready to drop her anchors. She flipped the switch to open the cargo bay and was about to release them when she was thrown backwards, all of her body weight slamming into her seat. There were three flashes of light in rapid succession, followed by three loud booms that each pushed her back. It stopped and she doubled over, clutching her chest and groaning in pain. When she looked up again, the ship she had been pursuing was gone, and in its place was a much smaller ship, with its entire engine blown to bits. All that was left was the glass cockpit bubble and a person floating in it, banging on the window. 

Without giving it much thought, Iszabella flew towards the wreckage until she was on top of the cockpit. She closed the ship’s bay doors and gingerly unbuckled the straps holding her to her chair. With a gasp of pain, Iszabella stood up and walked toward the capsule, which was now sitting in the depression made by the cargo bay just behind the cockpit. The man inside was gasping for air and she wrenched open the emergency escape hatch. The passenger flopped out, panting. He groaned as he struggled to get up, wobbling with dizziness. After a few seconds, he was able to regain his composure and looked up towards Iszabella. It took a few seconds to register, but he soon realized he was staring into the barrel of a gun.

“Wh-what?” he yelped.

“State your name, planet of origin, affiliation, and purpose for ending up exploded in the middle of the asteroid belt.”

The man panted and shook his head as though shaking away a nightmare. “Tolys. Tolys Laurinitus. From Earth. I’m a- a remote satellite operator. I was on my way back from Pluto to decommission old surveillance satellites.”

“What’s your proof?”

“Please, can you put down the gun?” he whimpered.

“Show me you are who you say you are.”

Tolys shakily pulled an identification card from his pocket and held it out. Iszabella read it, still holding the gun in the man’s face. She took it from his hand and glanced over it again, then held it up to the light and watched it reflect. Deciding it was satisfactory, Iszabella put the gun back in a holster on her thigh and returned the card. With this, her whole body seemed to sag and she let out a quiet sigh of pain. 

“Alright… this was like, not something I expected to happen. I mean- I fly alone. I don’t pick people up unless I’ll be dropping them off with the police.” Iszabella ran a hand through her short hair and tied her bangs out of her face. “I don’t know if I should drop you off with the police.”

She began pacing slowly, while Tolys looked around nervously. The ship was large and had a lived-in feel, and he felt like he was intruding. It wasn’t like he could leave, though. His ship had exploded, and all that was left was the cockpit and bits and pieces floating around in space. He was about to just sit down on the floor, when Iszabella turned and went to sit down at the seat in front of the controls, then patted the seat next to her. Tolys walked over, glancing at the console covered in buttons. He’d never seen such a complicated ship, though he also had never been in any ships other than his own.

“Hold on tight. I don’t know how safe I am here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Natalya came back for seconds.” Iszabella strapped her seatbelt back on and Tolys hurried to do the same. He’d just clicked the buckle together when he was thrown back, the ship accelerating with a loud, fiery blast of the engines. He looked over to see Iszabella gritting her teeth, eyes watering. She stared straight ahead out of the window, squeezing the yoke until her knuckles turned white and maneuvering from side to side, avoiding pieces of debris from what had once been Tolys’s ship. The ship itself seemed to groan with age every time it turned, and Tolys found his hands clenching onto the arms of his seat. They kept speeding up, weaving through debris and around other ships, until Iszabella spotted a large neon sign blinking in the distance. She slowed down, circling around the sign until she found a spot to hover the ship, obscuring it under the blinding lights. She took off her seatbelt and turned back to Tolys, who was again struggling to catch his breath.

“You’re fine. I’m not the worst driver in the universe.”

Tolys nodded weakly and pried his seatbelt off. 

“You said you’re from Earth, right?”

“Yeah.”

Iszabella sighed and shook her head a little. “That’s a long way from here.”

Tolys sighed and nodded. “Yeah.” He doubted he’d have an easy time getting back home.

“Look. It’s like, shitty that you got dumped out here in the middle of nowhere, and I feel partly responsible for that. I can take you home,” she paused and looked down for a second, pressing her lips together, before looking back up at Tolys, “but it comes with a price. Seventy-thousand woolongs. That should cover fuel and feeding you.”

Tolys sighed. “Look, I don’t-”

“Seventy-thousand. Take it or leave it. You’re lucky I’m not charging you for the work I could be missing. It takes four days to get to Earth, that’s enough time for me to capture at least one criminal, more if I’m lucky.”

“I really don’t have a choice.”

Iszabella shook her head.

“Alright. I’ll pay you once I’m back on Earth. I don’t have any money on hand right now.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” she raised an eyebrow expectantly.

Tolys scratched the back of his neck nervously. He rummaged in the pockets of his jeans, pulling out his wallet. In it were 490 Wulongs, and he took them all out, then held them out for Iszabella to take. She plucked them from his hand and counted them, then nodded, folded the bills, and stuffed them in her pocket.

“A deal’s a deal,” she decided, and held out her hand. Tolys shook it, making her wince with pain.

“Thanks. And by the way, I think your rib might be broken.”

“Yeah, thanks captain obvious.”

\----

Flying with Iszabella really wasn’t all that bad. She was quiet, and after her initial interaction with Tolys, quite withdrawn. She spent most of her time sitting in the cockpit, steering the ship every once in awhile, then turning on autopilot and opening up a book. Occasionally, she turned a hologram on and watched Big Shot, taking down notes about the criminals. 

Tolys had gotten over his initial awkwardness, but he still felt out of place. He sat next to Iszabella for a little, until she showed him where the kitchen was and told him to make himself useful. Her refrigerator was mostly empty, with just a styrofoam container of takeout and a drawer of limp vegetables. Her cabinets weren’t much better, as they were stocked with a half-empty box of sugary cereal, a few chocolate bars, and some canned soup. Tolys took out one of the cans and after some searching, found an opener. He was positioning the blade when the ship suddenly jolted to the side and the can went flying, spraying tomato soup from the tiny hole he’d cut. Tolys fell backwards, hitting the counter. The ship jerked upright once more and he tumbled forward, reaching out his hands to stop himself.

“That bastard!” Iszabella screamed, loudly enough that Tolys could hear her clearly in the kitchen. He ran out, up to the cockpit, and barely managed to grab onto the arm of her chair before Iszabella floored the gas. 

When Tolys managed to get himself into his seat, he was able to see a bottle green ship twisting and turning in front of them. Iszabella pushed the yoke down and they dipped, ramming into the other ship with a loud screech. She pressed a red button on the end of a joystick and Tolys heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire. The ship in front of them started spiraling into a nosedive and Iszabella went after it, throwing Tolys forward. Smoke clouded up the windows and Iszabella laughed as she pressed a green button. Another whirring sound came from the ship, and Tolys looked back to see a platform rise in the middle of the ship. There was a loud clicking sound, followed by the scrape of metal on metal, and Iszabella got up out of her seat and ran to the platform.

A man emerged, holding a gun. His hair was smoldering and blood was dripping from a gash on his cheek. Iszabella drew the gun from her holster and leapt forward, knocking the man back. She was significantly smaller than him, almost to the point where it seemed he could easily snap her in two. They fought, punching and kicking marked with the occasional gunshot. Tolys stepped back, unsure of what to do, until he heard Iszabella scream. The man was on top of her, wrestling her pistol out of her hand, as his gun had already been tossed across the room.

Not even thinking as he did so, Tolys ran forward and shoved the man off Iszabella. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it, distracting him for long enough that Iszabella could get up and pull a syringe out of her holster. She plunged the syringe into the man’s bicep and he stumbled, then dropped to the floor.

Both Tolys and Iszabella stood silently over the man, glancing down at him, then each other. Iszabella returned her gun to its holster, then carefully knelt down to check the man’s pulse. It was steady and he was still breathing, just knocked out. She looked up at Tolys, mouth open. 

“Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

He blushed and stared down at his feet.

“Seriously. I thought this guy was like, going to get my gun and shoot me.”

“Who… is he?”

Iszabella stood back up and dusted off her knees. She examined her knuckles, which were split and bloody. “Andrew Molotov. He escaped from prison a few weeks ago, has been at large ever since. Come on, help me take him to the holding cell.”

Tolys nodded and grabbed the man’s feet, while Iszabella took his hands. She grunted as she lifted, but didn’t complain as she carried him. 

The ‘holding cell’ turned out to be a closet which just had an iron door added to it. Iszabella pushed aside coats and high heels, and helped to shove the prisoner inside. She handcuffed him, then shut and locked the door. Tolys followed her back to the cockpit, where she released the prisoner’s ship and took her notebook off the ledge where it was sitting. Tolys opened his mouth, about to ask her if he should get a first aid kit and bandage her hands or her scraped knees, but she held up a finger to tell him to wait, and thumbed through the journal.

“Aha. Molotov. Return to Ganymede, bounty is 25 million wulongs.” Iszabella grinned and closed her notebook. “Nice. We caught a big fish.”

Tolys nodded, thinking over what she’d said. “Ganymede… isn’t that the other way?”

“Yeah, why?”

He sighed and shook his head. “No, no, don’t worry. I’d rather we get rid of this guy sooner rather than later.”

\----

Iszabella led the three policemen to the closet and unlocked the door. They opened it and pulled out the groggy man inside, forcing him to stand up. Two of the policemen frog-marched him off of the ship, while the third stayed back. He pulled a plastic bag from a pocket in his vest and handed it to Iszabella, then thanked her for her work. She nodded and gave a small salute, before he left as well.

Once the door of the ship clicked shut, she opened the plastic bag and pulled out a fat stack of wulongs. She counted out a third of the bounty, then held it out for Tolys.

“Huh? What’s this for?”

“For saving my life.” She grinned, then looked back at her stack of money, then into the closet. Her smile fell and she leaned forward, pinching the strap on a chunky high heel and lifting it up. “Oh ew! That asshole threw up all over my Miu Mius!” Iszabella dropped the shoe and backed up, shaking her head. “Shit. We like, have to go to Ceres. There’s a dry cleaner there who can fix this.” She gagged a little and shut the door to the closet.

Tolys sighed and looked over at Iszabella. He doubted he’d be getting home anytime soon.


End file.
